In the Market with Janet ParshallThings are moving fast in Washington, D.C., these days. We will hear from Kelly Shackelford, from the First Liberty Institute, as he gives us an update on the new administration’s promise to reinstate and repay those members of the military who were fired over the COVID mandate. Then, available energy is the key to a healthy economy. What are the plans of the new administration when it comes to wind and solar energy? Will there be more drilling in the U.S.? Will our country truly become energy-independent? Steve Goreham will answer those questions and more. Join us for a great hour of conversation.
Hi friend, thanks so much for downloading this podcast and I hope you hear something that will edify, encourage, enlighten and get you out there into the marketplace of ideas. But before you listen and before you go, let me tell you about this month's Truth tool. It's a classic. It's written by doctor Josh McDowell and was updated by his son, Doctor Sean McDowell. It's called More Than a Carpenter and I love this classic book. There's about 15 million copies in print around the globe right now, and what this powerful book does is answer some of the basic questions that are being asked constantly by people who are seeking, who want to know who Jesus is. Questions like, Jesus had to be a liar, a lunatic, or he's exactly who he said he was, which is Lord, how do I put science in relationship with my faith? Ah, the Bible records reliable. Who would die for a lie? And isn't there some other way besides Jesus? Those questions and more are answered in this wonderful book called More Than a Carpenter. It's yours for a gift of any amount. When you financially support in the market with Janet Parshall, ask for your copy of More Than a Carpenter. When you call 877 Janet 58. That's 877 Janet 58 or go to in the market with Janet parshall.org for a gift of any amount. We'll give you a copy of this Christian classic that will help you know the answer. So in turn you can go and tell somebody who Jesus is. 877 Janet 58 877 Janet 58 or go to in the market with Janet parshall.org. And while you're there, consider becoming a partial partner. Those are people who give every single month at a level of their own choosing. They'll always get the truth tool. But in addition, my way of saying thank you is offering you a weekly newsletter that includes some of my writing and an audio piece just from my partial partners. So again, 877 Janet 58 or online at in the Market with Janet parshall.org ask for your copy of More Than a Carpenter and now please enjoy the broadcast.
Here are some of the news headlines we're watching.
The conference was over. The president won a pledge.
Americans worshiping government over God.
Extremely rare safety move by.
A 17 years. The Palestinians and Israelis negotiated.
This idea is not.
New. Hi, friends. Welcome to In the Market with Janet Parshall. Hope you had a great weekend. We know it's going to play in the Super Bowl now don't we. Yep. Absolutely. And thank you for being with us this hour. We've got a lot of news for you I hope, like me, you're keeping your eyes on Israel. We should just as a matter of performance every single day Bible in one hand, newspaper in the other. And certainly watching what's happening in Israel is very indicative of that clock that's ticking right now. So I hope you're paying attention. And I am, because current events also are very compelling as we're watching more and more of the hostages slowly, excruciatingly, slowly being returned back home for more have come back home. To hear more on that story, here's my friend Chris Mitchell from CBN News on Saturday.
Daniella Gilboa. Larry Levy and Karina Arroyave came home after more than 470 days in captivity of Israel. Thousands cheered their return.
I live close by and I came to support the cause of getting. And we want all the hostages to come back home.
After October 7th. CBN news interviewed Sasha Aliyev, who told us about the last conversation with her just released sister, Karina.
I love you. I'm scared and they are here. They are abducting us.
Now her sister Karina and a total of six more hostages are free as part of this latest deal. Before they release, Hamas paraded the four soldiers on a stage with anti-Israel slogans in defiance. The women gave the victory sign to the crowd. Meanwhile, some of the 90 Palestinian prisoners released in the deal returned to Ramallah. In all, nearly 2000 prisoners, some who murdered Israelis, are to be freed during phase one of the deal.
Now, these people, many of them, have the most heinous murders on their records, murders of Israeli Jews. And they intend to do it again.
They say many, like British Israeli columnist Melanie Phillips, love to see the hostages freed, but see the agreement as bad for Israel and good for Hamas.
Israel is required to stand back for at least six weeks, while more and more aid is poured into Gaza. Now this means that Hamas. There are two Hamas battalions that are still left in Gaza, and Israel is forced to stand by while Hamas reorganizes itself, re-equip itself, recovers, recovers its powers, exists, survives, and consequently it thinks it has won. Do you see.
That Hamas is reconstituting itself Inside Gaza during this time.
Definitely, Hamas is trying to do invested most of its military power to control the Palestinians in Gaza. They don't need to invest too much power because the support of the Palestinian people for Hamas is high, but they are investing to be the power to run the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked President Trump for releasing the arms held up by the Biden administration.
Thank you, President Trump, for keeping your promise to give Israel the tools it needs to defend itself, to confront our common enemies, and to secure a future of peace and prosperity.
Talking with reporters on Air Force One, Trump said he would like to see Arab countries take many of the people of Gaza.
Talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.
Meanwhile, on this Holocaust Remembrance Day, the families of families of the freed hostages are celebrating what they could only hope they'd see.
We thank Chris Mitchell for that report, and it is, in fact, International Holocaust Remembrance Day. And it's so interesting that there are still to this day, despite the preponderance of evidence, eyewitness testimonials, there are still people who deny that that demonic act, those series of acts were taking place during World War Two. Well, news, when it comes to public health, U.S. public health officials have been told to stop working with the World Health Organization, effective immediately. A U.S. centers for Disease Control and Prevention official sent a memo to senior leaders at the agency last night for people who weren't watching championship football, telling them that all agency staff who work with the W.H.O. must immediately stop their collaboration and await further guidance. What, you may ask, was the catalyst for all of this? Well, this was something that president elect Trump said on the campaign trail. Now, President Trump signed it as an executive order, and perhaps one of the reasons he did this in such a forthright manner is because now there's a new report coming out, and my friend Bill Gertz writes about it in today's Washington Times about where was the original beginnings of the Covid virus. Now, remember, W.H.O. was complicit with the communist regime under President XI in not telling the world a it was coming out of China and literally sat on the information for months. How many people lost their lives as a result of that? It's a grotesque act, by the way. So Bill writes that once dismissed as disinformation and a conspiracy theory by health experts, people who were getting edited on social media platforms, analysts at the of all places CIA now believe that the virus behind the Covid 19 pandemic more than likely began inside China's Wuhan Institute of Virology. So the song and dance that we heard over and over and over again that it was from a bat to a mammal, by the way, that defies everything we know about animal to man transmission of diseases. But it was a wet market, and it was supposed to have been done by a bat in that market. Absolutely not true whatsoever. So the CIA spokespeople, speaking on background, said that the laboratory origin theory has eclipsed the idea that the bat origin virus behind the pandemic jumped to humans from an infected wild animal. The change was adapted in the past several weeks. So, according to the agency, in a statement that was released today, the CIA said this. CIA. CIA assesses with low confidence that a research related origin of the Covid 19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin, based on the available body of reporting. CIA continues to assess that both research related and natural origin scenarios of the Covid 19 pandemic remain possible. The low confidence language of the statement was an apparent bid to deflect criticism of earlier, inconclusive analysis, particularly in the face of China's stonewalling about what it knows about the about the early days of the virus. CIA analysts are going to continue to assess any new intelligence or open source data that might change the assessment, according to a spokesperson from the CIA. Now, again, this is extremely important because the CIA excuse me, the the W.H.O., the World Health Organization was absolutely complicit in cooperating with President XI of the communist regime, that somehow this information was not going to be transmitted to the globe. And as a result, again, only God knows how many people lost their lives because they absolutely held that information. It's also explaining why we fight so much for free speech. No, you weren't crazy. No, you weren't paranoid. You dared to question. And the government said, no, you may not. New day in Washington. When we come back, another executive order profoundly impacting, affecting, impacting our military back after this. Few people doubt that Jesus existed, but far too many doubt that Jesus was the Son of God. So how can we know for sure? That's why I've chosen more than a carpenter as this month's truth tool. Get answers to the big questions that will help you know and share the truth. As for your copy of More Than a Carpenter, when you give a gift of any amount to in the market, call 877858. That's 877858 or go to in the market with Janet parshall.org. Well, our next story really ties into what I was talking about before the break, which was the directive today that says the United States is going to disassociate itself from the World Health Organization, and that directive now is being sent out through the agencies. And, well, it should again, as I said before, the World Health Organization, don't forget at one point in time decided that they would give them self. They would self grant I self empower self anoint. If you will give themselves the authority to be able to say out of out of the whole globe, we're going to determine what constitutes a pandemic, and then we're going to tell every nation on planet Earth how they should conduct themselves during that particular pandemic. Well, they didn't define what a pandemic is. So thanks, but no thanks. Not interested in a one world government. Particularly not interested in people who give themselves that kind of authority. That's, uh, that's an oligarchy. And that's what you're not interested in. But there was good news today for more than 8000 service members. Let me tell you the back story on this. President Trump is reported today to set to reinstate service members discharged from the military under Biden administration's Covid vaccine mandate. Apparently, it was reported just this morning that the president is going to sign an executive order allowing those pushed out the door to return to the military at their previous rank with back pay and benefits. That's huge. Under President Joe Biden, more than 8000 service members were booted because they chose not to get the Covid jab. And according to a white House fact sheet. It says in that quote, the executive order directs the Secretary of Defense to reinstate all members of the military, active and reserve, who were discharged for refusing the Covid vaccine and who request to be reinstated. Just a couple of more facts here. From 2021 to 2023, the Biden administration and former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin discharged over 8000 troops solely due to their Covid 19 vaccination status. After the vaccine mandate was repealed in 2023, only 43 of the more than 8000 troops dismissed elected to return to service under the Biden administration and Secretary Austin. So this is very good news. It's particularly good news to one organization that I think should get so much credit for this area. First, Liberty, under the leadership of Kelly Shackelford, who's not only the president but their CEO, they jumped on this like just faster than you can say, Jack Robinson. And they decided that they would defend these men and women who many for Many for their faith, many for objections because of their conscience, said, we cannot be forced to have to have a drug put in our body. We still, even though we're a member of the military, retain that kind of autonomy. And first liberty was Johnny on the spot and has been fighting tooth and nail to protect these service people. Now that EO is going to be put into action, and this is a great day to be celebrating at First Liberty. So congratulations, Kelly, to you, to your team. For everyone at First Liberty, who stood in the gap for our men and women in uniform, who said thanks but no thanks. And now not only reinstated, but reinstated with back pay and benefits. What a celebration. Congratulations.
Well thanks, Janet. I mean, really, God bless the president for what he did. I mean, what we did when we filed a lawsuit, uh, back during this, this was a clear violation of the law. There is a specific law that protects religious freedom in the military. And, um, you know, we could have probably represented, you know, 50,000 people, but we we didn't have that capacity. So we thought, who's the best to take as the tip of the spear? And we took the Navy Seals and, uh, and we went in and we, we, you know, and by the way, what these people went through was just unbelievable, Janet. I mean, these are guys who many of them have traumatic, traumatic brain injuries because of what they do for our country. Um, they, they give everything. And yet and almost all of these people, by the way, were already immune, so they didn't need a vaccine anyway. But the particular ones we represented had religious objections deeply held from different faith backgrounds. But they had that objection. There is a process you go through, um, under under federal law applies to the military or they just refuse to. And they started punishing these guys. They started they took away their health insurance for their disabled children. They told them their pension was going to be taken away. Every one of these guys I talked to after the litigation was over, I didn't know all this. All of them sat down with their wife at one point and said, honey, we're probably about to lose everything. Um, but I can't violate my conscience. And every case, their their wives said, I'm standing with you. And in fact, the day they got us, I didn't know this, but they they had been meeting because they didn't know each other. They were from different sales teams. They they got together to talk about selling their homes so that they could afford attorneys to defend themselves, and that it's at that point that they found out about First Liberty. And we were able to come in and represent them free of charge, but we would have lost 30 to 50,000 in the military, uh, if it hadn't have been for the injunction. Uh, really, those Seals help us lead. That then led to a class action where we defended everybody in the Navy, and that was followed by a lawsuit for the Marines, for the Air Force. And we would have lost more than the 8000 you heard about. We would have lost 30 to 50,000 of our very best. so it was horrible what was attempted. And thank you know, we could win in litigation, keeping them and protecting them and clearing their records, which we did. We could not win money. And so there's all these restrictions in the military lawsuits. And so what what President Trump did is something we couldn't do. And God bless him.
And, well, just on so many levels, this was such the right thing to do. Let me pull out one Kelly that bothers me. And that is the recruitment numbers are terrible. They're in the tank. And so when you go to that specific fact from the white House fact sheet that said, out of the 8000 that were dismissed, only 43 returned to service. These were people who know what it takes to put on that uniform and to serve their country. And they found it so egregious that the majority, the overwhelming majority said, I'm not going to re-up. I'm not going to go back in again. That's not how you build a strong military defense. That's not you have the lethality that our new secretary of defense talks about. So it discouraged people to the point where they said, we're not going to go back in again. Not only is this going to save these men and women money in terms of lawsuits, but it's going to give them back pay and it's going to reinstate faith in our military as well. So let me play the devil's advocate. What about the person who says, all right, listen, it's about unit cohesion and cohesion, and it's about military readiness. You go to the military, you die to yourself. You give up your rights. And if the government says you got to take a jab, you got to take a jab because you're to defend our country. You hear the music playing and I want to cut your answer short. So what about the person who says, well, you gave up that one. You decided to become part of a group. Individuality goes out the window when you join the military. Why does that argument not pass muster in this particular case? Why does the rights of why do the rights of conscience and your First Amendment religious liberty rights, still come into place even if you don the uniform of the American military? Plus, Kelly, I want to ask you a couple of things. In the plethora of executive orders that have been signed so far, how is religious liberty faring in the midst of all of that? Kelly Shackelford is with us. What a great day for him and his team. He is president and chief executive officer of one of the best legal organizations out there, First Liberty Institute. Back after this. What a privilege, particularly today, with such great news, to be spending time with Kelly Shackelford, who is president and CEO of First Liberty Institute. This is a superb legal organization, and Kelly himself has argued multiple, multiple times before the U.S. Supreme Court. So the good news announced today is that 8000 people who wear the uniform of our armed forces are going to be reinstated. 8000 of them not only reinstated, but they're going to get back pay and benefits. These were 8000 who said, no, I'm not going to take the jab. And they were kicked out the door. Period. Just absolutely unconscionable. So just a quick recap. My question before the break. Kelly, what about the opposite argument that says, Will you give up autonomy to come into the military? If the government says you got to take the jab, You're going to have to do it because you belong to the government. You gave up your autonomy by joining the military. Why does that argument not give sway here?
Well, number one, because it's not the law. It's not it's not the Constitution. It's not the law. It's we have specific federal laws that do protect the religious freedom, for instance, of everybody in the military. And I think it's something everybody would agree with, which is the way it works, is if you can't do something, if the military is asking you to do something that violates your faith, there is a you ask for an accommodation and you go through a process and they say, look, let's see if we can allow you to to do everything you need to do without forcing you to violate your faith. And, and there were ways to do that here. But they didn't do that. They didn't go through the process at all. In fact, we proved when we got into court that they were completely and really dishonestly thwarting the process and violating the law on purpose. And and, you know, most people who join the military do so in part because of their faith. And certainly they have to rely upon their faith and the idea that the very rights they're fighting for, they would have to give up in order to be a part of our military. I mean, George Washington, when he started our military, the first thing he did was, was he gave everybody a Bible and he had chaplains there for him if they needed him. So that would have been a total changing of our military. But you're exactly right. What you said earlier. I mean, you know, you know, General Boykin a hero.
Yes, indeed.
To me, in this case. And he said, Kelly, he said, you've got to win this case. He said, third, fourth, fifth, sixth generation people are telling their kids not to go in the military because if they're going to violate the law and not respect, you know, their conscience and religious freedom, nobody's going to join. And with tears in his eyes, you know, Boykin said, you got to win this case. And that's what was happening. And let's hope that the new Uh, Secretary of Defense can restore the faith where people can trust that the military will be what it should be. And I've got a lot of the Seals represented. I mean, they have given everything. I mean, what they had been through, story after story, I could tell you would just it would just shocked most people. And yet they felt like they were being betrayed. After all, they had given their country. So you could see how how that destroys morale and cohesion and team when when all of a sudden, for no reason, they're being treated this way. And it was all politics. It was all coming from the Pentagon. It wasn't their commanders. It wasn't their supervisors. It was. It was in Washington, D.C.. And let's hope we never have to deal with that again.
Amen and amen. You know, this was part of, I think, the agitation with Pete Hegseth as the nominee for secretary of defense is because those who stood in opposition knew that he'd come in and he'd clean house and all this stuff was going to go the Wokeism was going to go, and they thought, oh, he's going to come in and he's going to clean house, and that's part of it. But by the way, it is for the betterment of our military. The having a strong military is a biblical idea. It is to protect the citizens of your country. That's a biblical idea. And now we're going to have some anecdotal evidence. In fact, it'll be pretty objective evidence, which is when you start seeing those recruitment numbers going up because they have tanked over the last four years. If they start going up, that question of trust that you just raised, Kelly, it's going to be answered by the numbers of people who are going to say, I'm willing to serve someone and something greater than myself. Sign me up. And so I look forward to seeing the change in those numbers. I'd be remiss, however, I didn't ask you quickly in this. I can't keep up with it. There are so many egos, but I'm obviously my most important concern out of all of these is where does religious liberty stand? Certainly indicative in the decision today about the reinstatement of these military members. That's that's a religious liberty at its core. But what from your vantage point, have you seen in the plethora of egos that says religious liberty is on a good track right now?
Well, there's a lot, Janet. And, uh. And in fact, I would encourage people it's hard for them to even keep up. Or the secular media is not going to always tell them go to first liberty.org and sign up for our insider, which comes out every Friday. We'll put the 5 or 6 biggest things that happened every week. But for example, um, uh, let's take free speech. There's an EO restoring free speech throughout the federal government. We are dealing with cases that we think this is going to resolve, uh, right now. I mean, we've got dog tags. There was a ministry that provided dog tags that had Scripture verses on them for those who serve us, and they were very popular, not not required to get it, just available if they wanted to get one. And this past administration banned these and said that they they violated the, you know, the religious freedom separation of church and state or they can't wear dog tags that that say a Scripture verse. Traverse. Well, sure they can, you know. I mean, uh, but free speech, you know, they can't say a scripture, but they can say something else. Uh, and this is really even for their own benefit. Right. That's just I could go through a whole bunch of free speech. The Babylon Bee, who we represented and how they were being censored, etc., but also just weaponization of the federal government. Right. We had the federal government actually going out, you know, saying that the people who went to school board meetings and spoke up for parental rights were now terrorists. You know, and we represent parental rights cases all across this country with school districts, wokeness and die. You know, that EO and that ending. I mean, we've got a case being argued this week from a woman who had a perfect record but was called in the office by the government officials and said, we want to know what your beliefs are on transgenderism and all that. And she was fired the next day, not because of anything she did. This is all over now.
Wow. New day, new day in day in Washington, that's for sure. And Kelly, I thank you so much for reminding us that we are to pray for those in authority. Certainly we're seeing the changes that are happening right now, but I'm also very grateful that God raises up warriors just like you and the entire team at First Liberty. Thank you for everything you do. Friends, sign up and get all the information. I've got a link, by the way, to the press release they sent out about the reinstatement of the military. Kelly, God bless you. Back after this. If what you hear on in the market with Janet Parshall encourages you, enlightens you, engages you, and equips you, I want to ask you to become a partial partner today. This program depends on the faithful and ongoing support of listeners just like you. By supporting this program on a regular, ongoing monthly basis, you'll receive several benefits that only my partners receive. So please call today eight 7758 or go online to in the market with Janet parshall.org. Well, we've been talking about executive orders, and many of the executive orders go right to what we need to do to repair our economy. And if you're paying attention and you're watching this, there is a profound linkage between a sound economy and energy independence. We want to be able to have energy that lets us live a lifestyle that meets our needs here in the United States, to not to have to be dependent upon a foreign entity, that geopolitics rides the issue as to whether or not we have access to the fuels that we need to sustain the life that we have here in the United States. Well, I couldn't wait to talk to Steve Graham about this because he's the executive director of the Climate Science Coalition of America. He's been with us several times. He's the author of four books. I have all of them. Every one of them is excellent. There's over 100,000 copies in print. His latest is called The Green Breakdown The Coming Renewable Energy Failure. And we're going to talk about quite a few things, quite a few things this hour that deal with the subject of energy. So, Steve, the warmest of warmest of welcomes. I really, with all of the egos I've been thinking as I've been poring through the plethora of emails that are out there, how often the issue of energy comes up, and the president made the statement within 24 hours that you're going to be allowed to buy the vehicle of your choice. And he was going to rescind all of the EV mandates out there, of which we're seeing popping up all across various states across the country. Before we bore down, no pun intended, into some of these issues, just give me, from your vantage point what you think about some of these eo's so far.
Hey Janet, great to join you again. Well, what we had this last week was shock and awe, if I might. Mr.. I mean, this this is a sea change in energy policy. As you said, the Trump actions are designed to boost energy production in the United States. And the spirit of drill, baby drill, such things as opening, of reopening of licensing for liquid natural gas terminals, opening federal lands for onshore and offshore oil and gas production. Reopening the Alaska lands for energy production. Reducing and eliminating efficiency. Regulations on dishwater stoves and furnaces, which the Department of Energy under Biden had put into place to to take some of those off the market. And then he also, as you know, declared a national emergency. He wants to build pipelines quickly. He wants to build power plants quickly. But maybe the biggest impact is what's going on with renewable energy. And literally he has he has dropped a bomb on renewables. It's not only it's not only electric vehicles, but maybe the biggest impact is on wind turbines offshore. In particular, the United States owns all of the land off the shore from three miles out to 200 miles. And so you need a license to do anything on that land. And Trump basically issued an executive order saying we're not going to, uh, we're not going to provide any more, uh, wind turbine licenses for any of the offshore lands. And that has a really, really big impact on the industry. Uh, it's going to stop, uh, leasing of land for offshore. And we had stock prices of European wind companies just plunge in the last week or so. So that is that is one of the really, really big impacts.
Well, let me just stop for a minute because you taught me several things and I want to make sure I understand this. So I did not realize international waters do not start before 200 miles out. So that's very interesting because that's kind of a lane, if you will, along our shoreline. That gives us the ability to put in those wind turbines or not put them in. Um, the president did talk frequently about that and basically, uh, put as you said before, in fact, they put out a statement from the white House that basically said those offshore wind power leases are going to be stopped, and that's going to be interesting. Hence, there was a reaction in the market, so I'm not surprised the least bit about that. But just before we left, President Biden said that he was not going to allow any leases for fossil fuel for the next 20 years. That was his way to stop it. Well, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, that was an executive order. Executive order sunset, when the president walks out and the new president walks in. So immediately that was eradicated. And then Trump turned around and did a 180 where he said, no, we're going to open the doors for these leases. It's just wherever you stand on fossil fuels. That aside, for a moment, if you're just looking at it from a defense position, why would we ever want to be dependent upon other nations to get our fuels? The world is an unsettled place. We go to war. There's some nefarious players out there, some interesting coalitions that get formed. If we don't have total complete energy dependence, geopolitical affairs dictate whether or not we're able to heat our homes and put gas in our car. It seems to me. So wouldn't we all want energy independence.
We would. We still are. We still are doing very, very well with energy. And a lot of times the press has overplayed that. They talk about how it's going down so much over Biden. But actually our oil and gas production increased during the Biden years. Um, and so but Trump has further wants to open up offshore leases as well, although many of the states don't want him offshore. So there's kind of a I think the states get a a prerogative there on whether to do that or not. Big thing. Big thing is Alaska though. A big thing is pipelines. We've had a lot of pipelines that have been, uh, prevented from being built, uh, built, uh, and, uh, so he wants to get those things restarted, but as you mentioned, electric vehicles, another another big issue. Uh, he said he was going to call he the unleashing American Energy executive order called for the elimination of the electric vehicle mandate, which is a little bit of a misnomer because there's not really a formal mandate, but we do have 22 states that have either executive orders or laws that are passed that would bar gasoline vehicle sales by some year in the future, like 2035.
Exactly. So what happens to those?
Right. We also have the EPA that has been putting restrictions, escalating restrictions on car manufacturers. That would require about 60% of new car sales by 2032 to be EVs. That is going to be rolled back as well. He wants to get rid of the $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles. Now that's part of the I think that was reinforced the Inflation Reduction Act. So that's going to require congressional action. He also wants to get rid of waivers, which is another kind of crazy thing. The 1970 Clear Clean Air Act said that the EPA could grant waivers to various states that would allow them. Well, the act first said that emissions and pollution was responsibility of the federal government, but they would grant a waiver to states that had prior laws. California was one of those. California passed laws in the 50s and 60s, but that has been abused recently. California just goes out and passes any law at once, and then the EPA rubber stamps it and then other states pick it up. But Trump says we're going to get rid of all of that. We're going to roll that back. And just a couple of weeks ago, California withdrew a request for a waiver for all heavy trucks to be electric and locomotives to be electric as well. They just said, well, Biden's EPA hasn't agreed to this yet. We're just going to pull it back because Trump's not going to do it. So big, big changes in electric vehicles of all kinds. Wow.
And if I could pause for a second. And by the way, just to tell you how important it was about jumpstarting our economy. This was an executive order that came out the day he was inaugurated. So this was right there, ready to go. This idea of dealing with unleashing America's energy. But the culture reacts, which I find interesting here because I've read now that Ford has disbanded some of their plans for EV vehicles, that the cars that had been Tesla's, for example, in rental companies, they are trying to unload their electric vehicles 40% plus, according to one survey I read of people who own EVs said they would never buy another one again. So you can have the politics in this all you want to, but the consumer is saying thanks, but no thanks. I saw an interesting I love historical photos, and I was perusing some over the weekend where Thomas Edison was sitting in a car that was electric powered. Well, I guess it was sort of self serving if you're Thomas Edison, but he went on to drive a fossil fuel vehicle later on after that, so it's not like we haven't been here before. The bottom line is the customers are saying we don't necessarily want this. There were supposed to be all this conversation about starting all of these charging stations all across the country, and that never got off the ground. So isn't the president just not only he's futurecasting and what he wants to do to reinvigorate the economy by releasing American energy. But isn't he also being responsive to the overwhelming majority of Americans who are saying, we don't want these mandates, we want to be able to buy the car of our choice?
Yeah. And one of the things he said was that people should have choice with what they buy, whether it be home appliances or it be their vehicles. They should have choice. They shouldn't be forced to buy EVs and forced to to get rid of all gasoline cars based on a fear of man made climate change or some other sort of thing like that. By the way, another big another big hit is EV charging stations.
Mhm.
Uh, the Biden administration had uh, had targeted several hundred billion dollars in, uh, in money for charging stations all over. I was just reading about Pennsylvania. That's going to have to cut them. Cut them all off. Uh, 80% of those charging stations was being funded by federal money. And by the way, none of these charging companies can make money right now. There's not a single one that's making money in the world. So, um, this is another big hit, and we're going to get back to, uh, you know what? The market can support what consumers want to buy instead of, uh, we're going to force you to do this and force you to do that and spend all your tax dollars to do it as well.
Exactly. Well, that ties into the question about funding these sort of renewables. Will we see the elimination of tax credits for solar panels and for wind turbines? That was used? In theory, it was supposed to be a catalyst for people to make those kinds of choices. I'm not sure it had that much of a profound impact on the incentivizing of buying those kinds of sources. But what do you see for the future?
Yeah, well, actually a huge impact. And a lot of that comes out of the Inflation Reduction Act. Now Mr. Trump is going to withhold funds, which I think he can do not disperse them. But the tax credits. That's going to require an act of Congress to roll back tax credits. So we'll have to see whether they're able to carry that through.
Yeah. When we come back, another big decision. And I would love for you to talk about this. Steve is the president said almost I think it was day one. It's happening so fast. It's hard to keep up that we are going to withdraw from the Paris accord. This, of course, is the UN climate change treaty that we're constantly being harassed into becoming a participant in. I want to get your take on that. Steve's books are fabulous, by the way, on this. His latest is called Green Breakdown The Coming Renewable Energy Failure. He's seeing something coming down the road apiece. It's worth the read more with Steve Gorman right after this. A lot of the executive orders have to do with energy and the economy, and the two are inexorably linked. So it's a timely conversation that we're having today with Steve Gorman, who's executive director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and the author of four books on energy, climate change and sustainable development, with over 100,000 copies in print. His latest is called Green Breakdown The Coming Renewable Energy Failure. So one of the eo's, as I recall it, Steve, is the president saying that we are going to pull out of the Paris climate accord. Talk to me about that and why is it significant?
Yeah, you're right Janet. The Paris Climate Accord was a treaty signed and signed in 2016 that said all these nations would work toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and also that they would make financial payments from the wealthy nations to the poor nations of the world, because the U.S., of course, was responsible for dangerous climate change and some of the other nations. But President Trump has basically said again, that's a lot of nonsense. And his first day he withdrew us from the Paris climate accords. He also said that the U.S. will immediately cease financial payments under the Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is the UN treaty. And just last fall at Cop 29, it was agreed that $300 billion a year would go from the wealthy nations to the developing nations. But they'll have to do that without the United States. But there's a bunch of domestic stuff, too. He has said he's getting rid of the Green New Deal, and he's actually disbanding and closing offices in the federal government. The Climate Change Support Office, the American Climate Corps, the working Group on Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases. And maybe the biggest of all, he has directed the new head of Head of the EPA, Lee Zeldin, to review the 2009 endangerment finding.
And.
That I call that, uh. December 7th, 2009 is a date that will live in infamy, because on that date, the EPA ruled that carbon dioxide was endangered United States citizens. It was a harmful, uh, gas, which it isn't. And so that is the basis of all of the climate laws in the United States right now. But he's going to have, uh, the new head of EPA, Mr. Zeldin, review that, and we'll see if he's able to turn that around as well.
Yeah.
Fascinating. You know, I have the EO in front of me on January 20th again. And there are multiple parts to this under the canopy of unleashing American energy. And I want to pick up on something you said in the last segment that we were together. Because this really is not only about a robust economy, but it really is about liberty and freedom of choice, which is about a whole lot more than the abortion issue, by the way. It's the choice to live the way you want to, as you and I'll use the words from Scripture as you look well to the ways of your household. So part of what he said in this is that he wants to safeguard. I'm reading right from the EO, the American people's freedom to choose from a variety of goods and appliances, including but not limited to light bulbs, dishwashers, washing machines, gas stoves, water heaters, toilets, shower heads and to promote market competition and innovation within the manufacturing and appliance industries. Now again, this is like taking an econ class in an economics class in high school. You understand the linkage here between energy and the economy. So when the government comes in and puts regulations on your back and limits your ability to make choices for what you and you, you and your household want to do, it's an incentive killer. It's an it's an innovation killer. It's an economy killer. And I was just going to put it on the table. I am so glad that he's made the made the statement about the light bulbs. I want only incandescent light bulbs. I hate LED bulbs. It's like illuminating my house to look like a doctor's office. No offense to the doctor's office, but I want the soft ambient light in my house that only an incandescent bulb can provide. But going to the transcendent philosophy of just that one paragraph out of the energy bill that he signed to explain to our friend Steve. For those who don't get this, this isn't a prima facie argument for them. Maybe they need to dig in a little bit deeper. How and why is the energy question so connected to the economy?
Question well, everything uses energy. Every every process that you do to some extent is reliant on energy. And you really mentioned so. So Mr. Trump, as you say, is going to get us out of the the business of choosing energy for people and restricting their use of energy or, or energy products, that that was that has been going on for, for at least the last four years. And, you know, a perfect example is Southern California. They have to rebuild a lot of that from those, those fires. But they have all these restrictions on housing. You have to have solar panels on your roof in some communities to build a house, you have to have electric vehicle charging ports. Uh, they have they have all these restrictions or you can't have natural gas furnaces, you have to have an electric stove. And these adds tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of building new buildings. And this is the kind of stuff, again, the the previous administration was all into telling people what they could do and what they couldn't do. And Mr. Trump is back toward towards let people make choices.
Yeah.
Exactly. Right. And this is really the core question in all of this, is the liberty for you to be able to decide what works best for you and your household, free of government interference. And this is where I love history. When you go back, one of the tension arguments that the founders had was the idea of how big should they grow government, and how much should they should they keep government at advance? I'm not an Alexander Hamilton fan. I'm just going to put it on the table. This was a big government guy and he wanted the government to grow. Adams, on the opposite hand of that, felt that the power should be going much more to the States. And that's why he was such a fan of enumerated rights in the Constitution. If they weren't there, it belonged to the state, not to the federal government. When the federal government starts putting in places and tells you whether or not you can and cannot have a gas stove at the core of that, yes, it's energy, yes, it's environment, but it's also a freedom issue, is it not?
Yeah, it is in a lot of ways. And we've had so much federal government involved in everything. You know, back about the year 2000, all of the government, the government spending, the U.S. economy was about 18% of the total spending. Now it's up over 30%. The government is just dominating all the markets. We have to cut it back, get it much, much smaller. And by the way, one last item here. They had a they had a fire in Massachusetts two weeks ago. And these were electric buses that the Biden administration has been given $2 billion for. They had never gone into service, and one of them burst into flames and burned up five of them. That's his lithium battery problem.
And that would be quite literally money up in smoke. You know, your book is called your latest book, Steve is called Green Break Down the Coming Renewable Energy Failure. It seems to me that a lot of these executive orders are really and truly setting the stage for exactly what you write about in your book. So let me encourage my friends to get it. It's right there on my website. Go to In the market with Janet parshall.org. Click on the red box. It's right under the summation of the hour and it will say program details and audio. It will take you to the information page. On the right hand side there's Steve's latest book remember he's written for this is the fourth one, Green Breakdown. And then underneath. By the way, I've got a link to his website which is chock full of information. Steve, you always come with excellent news about energy and the environment and I so appreciate it. Thank you. And thank you, friends. We'll see you next time on In the Market with Janet Parshall.
